2 Comments

Elizabeth Honig

Sat, 2014-03-15 17:00

Poor related copy sold at R. H. Ward, London, on May 15, 1934 with a pendant of a village scene and windmill. Both of these works are attributed as Jan Brueghel II and both are works on copper with a dimension of 15 x 20.5 cm.
Poor variant formerly art market Monaco (Sotheby's 15/16.vi.90 #506), (panel, 17 x 20). Another work related to that variant sold Stockholm, Anktrousverk, 22/23.v.01 #1401, (panel, 17 x 22). Different variant formerly art market London: Koetser 1964 (copper, 12.1 x 17.8).
Variant in Dresden, dated same year, has fascinating relationship to this one: it's as if he's walked to a different place and looked at the same pair of windmills from the front instead of from the back. Query does this argue that there were real structures that he observed or that--as with Rembrandt and figural compositions--he was able to sort of spin things around in his imagination? The Dresden painting is also on different support and much larger.

Although this is now displayed as a pendant to Ertz #557 which shows the Archduke and Archduchess outside of Mariemont, the two works actuallly have different provenances and were thus not intended as pendants. They seem rather to both be part of a group of small-format pictures that Jan painted around this time; Munich catalogue reaches same conclusion. Query are these possibly the ones we know he did for Brussels (De Maeyer document)?